Celebrating my 66th Birthday

Georgie, Me, and Tanya Lee

I celebrated my birthday yesterday doing exactly what I wanted . . . attending a weekend long agility seminar hosted by our local dog club.  Georgie Myers was our seminar organizer and did a fabulous job, and Tanya Lee from Shreveport was our instructor.  They posed with me briefly for this photo, but it was a hard one to get because Tanya is so bubbling over with enthusiasm to share information that it's almost impossible to find a momentary pause in her teaching.

My husband, John, paid my seminar fee as my birthday present, and family/friends agreed to postpone my birthday celebration until a later date.  Everyone who called with well wishes had to leave me a message because I didn't have time to answer my phone, and was so exhausted each evening I didn't even open my computer. Mom sent me a thick book on "Health Secrets For Seniors" by Bottom Line, which I suppose makes me an official "senior" now.  Laura dropped off a vegan birthday cake and a vegan loaf of bread from Whole Foods Sunday evening, but I was soaking in the bathtub and missed her visit.  Hopefully we'll share them on Wednesday night after going to the movies.  I want to see Lincoln.

Another great gift, Laura and I are both so tired of feeling so tired all the time, we're both interested in exploring Nathan's new vegan diet.  It's great having a friend with similar interests. Before the weekend I prepared a few recipes from the Forks Over Knives Thanksgiving collection, a butternut squash soup using Vegetable Broth and curry instead of my usual Chicken Broth, salt and pepper (and it tastes great).  I made vegan sausage, took notes on how to vary it, and used it in place of Jimmy Dean's sausage in my usual smothered cabbage dish.  Looks and tastes so good and the texture is so similar, I doubt I'll miss the meat.  I made a cous cous dish using veggie broth, which was tasty.  On the other hand, the next day I mixed the cous cous with a raw scrambled egg and fried up little pancakes in butter, which were scrumptous!   And my friend Thom, who fries turkeys and caters parties, gave me the bones from 3 turkeys as per our usual Thanksgiving custom, so I boiled the bones, plucked off the meat, and made a huge vat of turkey soup. It's so yummy I don't know how I can back off of that tradition, or how I'll do without my eggs and butter. Another instance where many baby steps will be required.

I'll discuss what I learned at the seminar in my next post (before I forget it), because this upcoming weekend I'll be out of town again at the Lake Charles Agility Trial.  Whoppie!

Upwards and onward!